Anadolu Agency pays visit to Iran

By Muhammed Kursun TEHRAN The Anadolu Agency deputy director-general Sunday paid a visit to the offices of Iran's newspaper Hamshahri and the official gazette of Iran as a part of the 43rd Executive Board Meeting (EBM) of the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA) in the capital Tehran. Metin Mutanoglu met with Iran Newspaper general director Muhammed Taki Rughani and Hamshahri Newspaper editor-in-chief Mehran Karemi in his visit to Iran. During his meeting with Muhammed Taki Rughani at the headquarters of Iran Newspaper, Mutanoglu said Anadolu Agency was publishing in 12 languages, not counting Turkish. "We opened 41 offices in 35 countries across the world," he said. More cooperation is needed to break the hegemony of Western agencies in the region, he added. Expressing his desire to follow the developments in the Middle East from local news agencies, Muhammed Taki Rughani noted that the U.S.'s sanctions have brought Iran and Turkey closer. "We are using the productions of Anadolu Agency from other parts of the world especially news and images from Palestine," Rughani said. Meanwhile, in a different meeting with Mehran Karemi at the headquarters of Hamshahri Newspaper, Mutanoglu stated: "By establishing a Persian language service, we aim to bring two communities closer." News sources have a decisive role for understanding each other correctly, Mutanoglu said. "As an agency, we have been focusing on human interest stories for the past few years. We can influence society with the very simple human interest stories we produce." "The annual meeting of the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA) will begin in Tehran on Sep. 3 with managing directors and deputy heads of member news agencies in attendance. "The summit, held by Iran’s official IRNA news agency, will bring together directors and senior managers of news agencies from Turkey, Russia, Azerbaijan, China, Qatar, Oman, Mongolia, South Korea, Kazakhstan, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Bulgaria as well as Iran," according to official website of the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA).